Stanton Mausoleum - Topeka, Kansas - Victorian Style Architecture on Waymarking.com

PLOT 3

Hiram O. Stanton originally owned the Stanton Mausoleum and it is dated 1887. Stanton, who owned a pump manufacturing company, purchased the plot on June 12, 1888 for the sum $409.50. The first interment was June 15, 1888. The mausoleum is in Section 62 on Plot 3, which is 32 feet wide by 27 feet deep. The mausoleum façade measures 32’ wide by 14’, 8” high.

Built of limestone, this structure is third along the row of ten mausolea. The date A. D. 1887 is carved on the face of the raised stone plinth at the north retaining wall, where C.H. EVANS & CO. is also carved. STANTON is also carved at center of the dressed-face epistyle spanning the gateway. With the Reed mausoleum adjacent on the north, this structure is position six feet behind the curbed drive and is engaged to the fieldstone retaining wall. The architectural style is Richardsonian Romanesque.

Elements of the façade are symmetrically disposed about a central vertical axis and appear in three vertical segments. These are placed on a stone plinth that breaks for the threshold at the gateway. The gateway epistyle is inset on flanking, symmetrical, rusticated, quarry-faced ashlar piers. Square from their base to the epistyle, they become round as they meet their capitals, which are circular in form with Tuscan order details. The piers support a shed-roof shaped pediment laid in three tile-like courses of stone and are buttressed by flanking pillars laid in quarry-faced ashlar. Adjoining the pillars are lateral walls laid in random range ashlar descending toward the drive. They splay toward the drive and are capped with rusticatetd, quarry-faced limestone.

A stone threshold, jambs, and lintel frame an iron double gate. Each leaf is ornamented by strap hinges that are cut in a pattern of evolute spirals. The gate leafs are ventilated by grilles of enmeshed bar.

The gates open into a vault that has a front loading arrangement permitting nine caskets, stacked three high and wide, each with an access panel of stone. The walls and arched ceiling are of limestone and the floor is ceramic tile.

- National Register Application